#yikes sometimes

[rookamell]

Sometimes I see Anders banters from DA2 and I just... have to sit with that for a while

[makesitprecious]

When Matt made the oat milk comment, I didn’t take it seriously? I took it as he read the room (not even in a super sense way) and Karen saying no to coffee was a rejection to Frank, so he thought “yikes” was cracking a joke to break the tension, since Frank was clearly oof. Some people are commenting Matt truly needs the oat milk because he’s lactose intolerant or he’s being snooty and here I think he is being a bro 😆

[oifaaa]

Hear me out: "asktimedrake" but Steph has taken over the account and is pretending to be tim while in a shitty tim costume. Not red robin, tim.

Why are you sending this to me tumblr account Oifaaa who has no connection or association with the blog currently known as asktimdrake

[sorikuceo]

post island designs? perhaps survival au :) they can be girls 👧 i am with u on girl lotf superior

ruth and that fuckass tie

post island jalph yuri designs .. thank u soooo much for the request i needed an excuse to make their refs

+ a doodle from another ask n CLOSE UPS !!! ( @altonate-universe )

[abs0luteanarchy]

blood soaked monster

[radioactivepeasant]

Snippets: Free Day Thursday

Per the poll, we're going with "half of Spargus casually parents the boys and Jak doesn't know what to do with that"

Some context: this is set within a half-WIP where I was exploring ways to interpret Ashelin's manipulative little "or did the hero I know die in the desert?"

In this universe, Jak was technically clinically dead for almost 90 seconds because heatstroke is no joke and adding eco imbalance probably makes it worse. He was resuscitated inside the city walls, so the Wastelanders shrug and invoke a law as old as the city: "a "corpse" just took his first breath in our city, that makes him one of us by birth." And then he and Daxter got sent to live in the Arena barracks wing meant for younger Wastelanders (he's not loving it)

Jak was in a bad mood. He'd been up most of the night, dealing with flashbacks, and he was tired. He hadn't finished any of the work he'd been handed so far, and he was supposed to report to Damas in two hours for gods only knew what reason. In the three-odd weeks he and Daxter had been here, he'd spoken to the man all of twice. What had he done? They hadn't even let him go past the gate!

"Jak, you done with the-"

"No," Jak snapped. Immediately, he felt a little bad. Running a hand over his hair he sighed. "...sorry, Daxter."

Daxter narrowed his eyes. "You need a nap."

Jak looked away. It wasn't like he didn't know that. He bit down on a sharp retort.

He hated not finishing a task. It made him feel useless. Like a failure. But he was having so much trouble just. Focusing!

Sitting and tying nets back together was as repetitive as scrubbing the floors back in Sandover -- or the prison, occasionally, when the Baron was coming and the guards had to pretend they actually took care of the facility sometimes. It let Jak's mind wander. In the prison, that was a welcome escape. But after his escape, he didn't like letting his thoughts loose. They tipped into bad memories too often, and trying to remember the good ones was hard.

Right now, all Jak could really think about was the nightmare the morning dorm headcount had woken him from.

The image of Samos glaring down at him, hand on the controls of the Chair, was going to haunt him for a while.

The crews of the Looper, Half-Shark, and Black Eel moved along the beach, monitoring the kids from Dorm Five who had been assigned to help them. They were mostly in their late teens, like Jak, but there were a few unusually small ones -- a thirteen year old, a twelve year old boy and his eight year old brother -- given that they had nowhere else to go. There was a reason the other dorms called Five the Orphanage when they thought the matron couldn't hear them.

Most of the other ten kids were already done, or close to done. And Jak couldn't even do something he used to do all the time as a little kid.

"Y'alright there, sprout?" asked a gruff voice.

The captain of the Half-Shark stopped at the end of the pier with his hands on his hips. When Jak scowled and tangled his fingers in the cords, he made a knowing sound.

"One of those days, huh?"

"What days?" Jak growled.

The grizzled man winked and tapped a finger to his nose.

"Got a visit from the night hag, didn't ya? I won't tell. All sorts of dreams'll put shadows like that under a man's eyes in the night. You can take a break if you need."

"I'm fine."

Jak wove another two rows and knotted them in place. Silently, he willed the man to just go away. The last thing he needed was for any of the others to notice that he wasn't pulling his weight.

He'd never been around this many young people in his life. Ten was bad enough, but there were some hundred or more teenagers all told rotating through the barracks. The noise, the way they all knew each other already, it locked Jak's voice down eight times out of ten. They all stressed him out too much to even consider conversation.

Daxter claimed that he had two rivals and an archnemesis already. Jak didn't want to talk to any of them.

They were normal. Most of them had never been forced labor for a sage or a gangster or a resistance. They'd never been imprisoned, or tortured, or consistently told that if they weren't carrying everyone's burdens, they were worthless.

The only ones who had remotely similar experiences were the three who were rumored to have escaped Marauder slave camps. They didn't speak to anyone but each other, but as soon as he'd arrived they'd seemed to recognize the shadows hanging over Jak. During allotted mealtimes or when they were thrown out into the common area during the chaotically unstructured "free time", the two girls and the younger kid had started sitting silently with their backs to him: keeping watch so he and Daxter could eat. And Jak was not about to ask them what they'd gone through after that kindness.

Matron Pax reassigned Jak from room four to room eight within the week, putting him next door to the pale trio. All the "quiet kids" went on the same end of the hall. He appreciated that the woman paid attention to her charges' personalities, but he could've done without some of her rules.

"It ain't gonna do you no good to run yourself into the ground, son," the captain remarked. He folded his arms. "What's your hurry, anyhow? Ain't like you've got to earn amulets yet."

Jak looked up with incredulous annoyance.

"Yeah we do? We're "newcomers", remember?"

Daxter grimaced. "We don't even know how to drive!"

Captain Oaken raised his hairy eyebrows in surprise. Then understanding settled in.

"Ah don't mind them younger warriors. They're just bein' snots because they gotta earn their citizenship, while you're a born citizen."

Jak recoiled. "I think you've been out in the sun too long. I wasn't born here."

"We think," Daxter added helpfully, "We dunno where they snatched you from. Samos is a lying liar who lies, remember?"

Jak elbowed him and shook his head.

"Your king dragged us here half-dead."

"A good ways more dead than just half, remember?" Oaken corrected.

Suddenly, the midmorning sun felt cold. Slowly, he set the net down and stood up to look the captain in the eyes.

"What?"

"They didn't tell you?"

The captain sounded surprised. He scratched his nose and glanced back at the other teenagers. None of the others were close enough to overhear. Oaken lowered his voice anyway.

"Boy, you was dead dead a quarter of a minute before they got you in the gate. No pulse, not breathing. There was gawkers all over the place while his lordship got your pulse going again. Word got around."

Jak felt sick. Dead? He couldn't have been dead! He wasn't sure if fifteen seconds even counted. His brain would've still been active, right? His brain was still active, and he didn't remember any hypoxia.

Of course, he didn't remember much of anything else, either.

Technicality. It was only a technicality.

Calm down. Calm down, you didn't actually die. He's a fisherman. They tell tall tales. Probably thinks that's supposed to impress me.

"You alright, boy?" Oaken gestured to the pier. "Maybe you oughta sit, huh? You're looking pale."

When Jak only stared at him blankly, he patted the boy's shoulder gingerly.

"Don't let it get to you, eh? They brought you back, and it was inside the city walls. That's the part that matters."

Insane. These people were insane.

But...

If it meant he didn't have to fight to be allowed to stay, if it meant he maybe, hopefully, might actually have rights, maybe he could ignore some of the bizarre tendencies of this city that had...rescued? Captured? Conscripted them?

He never did finish the net. He was completely distracted for the remainder of the morning, wrestling with the implications. Eventually, the warrior on rotation as Dorm Five's resident advisor just excused him to report to the tower.

"What?! He's not even done!"

Luka glared at Jak and Daxter.

"Why does he get to leave early?"

The RA rolled his eyes at Luka.

"Because he got summoned. You could've left by now if you weren't goofing around with the fishhooks instead of cleaning the traps."

Luka sulked, but didn't say anything more about it. Jak fully expected the burly teenager to say something snide about it later that he'd probably have to smack him for. Luka, as he had been assured by the little kid, Koda, didn't like new people in the "orphan hall", and always gave newcomers a hard time. So what else was new.

"Ooooo, he's in trouble," one of the girls snorted in a sing-song voice.

Why were teenagers in Spargus so...childish?

____________________________________

Jak ignored them all. He had to follow a map to get to the citadel, avoiding people as much as possible. He tended to stay away from people anyway, but today especially he just wasn't in the mood for hu'men interaction. The one plus side of getting called up to talk to -- or be talked at by -- the king of this place was that it would probably be quiet.

Anything his dorm...neighbors...or whatever they were...said had to be taken with a heavy grain of salt. But Daxter had heard that the king didn't like more than a few people in a room with him at a time. Either he was paranoid about getting ganged up on, or he just didn't tolerate loitering like Torn.

"Hey, hold up!"

Oh now what?

Jak turned slightly to find a woman with a gunstaff approaching quickly. He tensed, ready for a fight, but she had a fairly casual expression.

In three steps she'd reached them, all while patting her pockets for something.

"Geez, I know the Youth Barracks had a population boom, but you'd think Pax would notice the naked kid."

"Excuse me?!" Jak sputtered, leaning away from her.

With an exclamation of triumph, the warrior produced a somewhat grease-stained rag. Without so much as a by-your-leave, she plucked the cap and goggles from Daxter's head and wrapped the rag around his brow and the back of his neck, just like Jak's scarf. When she deemed the result satisfactory, the warrior slapped the goggles back on him.

"Okay, carry on."

Both boys stared at her.

"What was that?!" Daxter squawked, "Did you just put a grease rag on my head?!"

"Didn't have a handkerchief." The warrior shrugged. "Listen, pipsqueaks, Foothills clan learned a long time ago: fur don't save you from sunburn. You'll thank me later."

Jak exchanged a glance with Daxter. It was true that Daxter's skin had been extra sensitive lately. They'd just assumed it was the heat and sweating. Neither had considered that he could get sunburned.

A little chagrined, Jak looked up at the woman and muttered a quick thanks. He waited, assuming she wanted something in trade. Everyone seemed to barter here, rather than pay in paper orbs.

"Alright, scram," the lady said, waving them off nonchalantly. "You look like you got chores or something. Don't ever say Mel didn't do nothin' for ya, huh?"

Jak didn't speak for the next two turns in the neighborhood. Daxter was more than happy to fill the silence for him.

"Is this what it's like bein' you?" the ottsel asked, hanging over his shoulder, "The eyes all the time? Peeps just comin' up and decidin' stuff about ya? Not that I blame em for lookin, but it does start to wig an ottsel out."

He'd once assumed that being the center of attention was all he really wanted. Even negative attention was still attention, and Daxter had learned every way to provoke people, just so they would have to acknowledge his existence. But now he wondered if there was such a thing as too much of a good thing. Because if he and Jak got into trouble, Jak wasn't the one getting all the consequences anymore. They didn't just tack Daxter on as an accompanying afterthought to "help", no, it was much worse. Matron Pax had proved adept at finding ottsel-sized chores to make him do!

On the one hand, he was being acknowledged as his own person, being nagged at to eat at the same time as everyone else, to stay in his room after lights-out, to go to school (or what passed for school here).

But on the other hand, he couldn't get away with rot anymore!

"I never know what these people want," Jak grumbled as the tower finally came into view. "Are we here to work, or are we being patronized? They're watching us, Dax. I know we're being monitored. There's no way people would randomly stop a stranger to make him fix his scarf."

"Or scold us for carrying three ammo crates at once," Daxter added.

"Or drag us off the street at noon to make us sort beads until noon rest was over," Jak agreed. "Nobody just...does that for strangers. Especially not a city where you're either useful or deadweight."

One more person tried to stop them when they got to the tower. Jak actually remembered this guy's name. Watchman Chayne guarded the elevator up to the throne room. He was a pretty easygoing guy, compared to most Wastelanders. Jak didn't mind him so much.

"Hold it," Chayne signed, raising a brow, "What are you two up to?"

"I dunno, ask Damas," Jak retorted.

"Whatever it was, we didn't do it!" Daxter added quickly, "And I have character witnesses!"

Chayne let out a soft, hissing laugh and waved them into the elevator.

"Oh, your turn for newbie check-in, huh? Just don't mouth off and you'll be fine."

"Define mouthing off," Daxter said, steepling his fingers.

Chayne blinked at him slowly, then looked at Jak, then at Daxter again.

"Godspeed, kid."

Great.

[seyaryminamoto]

Azula's most overlooked characterization element

Why, hello there.

It is I.

And I'm back on my bullshit.

I didn't WANT to be. But a bunch of factors pulled me back in.

For the record: I'm not here to start any fights or light the fuse of arguments that I most likely won't have time or interest in responding to. What I AM here for... is to prove that there's something out there a bunch of people are delighted to sleep on because acknowledging it would render maaaany simplistic interpretations entirely invalid...

That group of people includes the fandom, of course. And the original show's staff. And the liveaction's staff, to a fault. Surely the TTRPG ones too. And absolutely, the comic book writers.

Hell, I'll even include MYSELF in that group, even though I'm making this post right now.

I found it really curious that I very recently saw this element mentioned in a pretty neat blog I follow, @atla-lore-archive, I absolutely advise anyone who hasn't checked out said archive to do it if you wish to understand a lot of the "extra lore" the fandom had access to, back in the old days when the turbonick ATLA site still existed and used to be the only source of deeper knowledge about the fandom besides the occasional interview that most people didn't even know where to track down.

But the funny thing is that the post I'm talking about proved that even Turbonick forgot about the people this post is about :')

And that would beeeeeeee...

*cue drumroll*

Lo and Li!

What makes Lo and Li an important subject to discuss?

Why, a lot of things. Among them, the fact that almost nobody brings them into the core focus of any analysis made about Azula's character. I've personally mentioned them once or twice I believe, mostly as negatives, there's but ONE positive aspect I've ever found of them: them being non-benders MIGHT be a reason why Azula isn't shown as being quite so obsessive with firebending supremacy as Zuko was supposed to be.

But that's very much the sole good thing I can think to say about them and it's completely subjective, as good as a headcanon, because we don't even KNOW if they influenced Azula in that sense!

Why do they seem to get overlooked quite as much? Why... let's start thinking about it, shall we?

Lo and Li are Azula's firebending teachers. As far as anyone can tell, they're also her advisors. These two people should be an essential part of Azula's life... but ironically, we seldom see them with her. Most times, Azula isn't around these two. Whenever she is? It doesn't usually look like she's having a good time.

And that's no surprise, considering her first scene with those two very much puts forward a dynamic of cold distance between Azula and her mentors: Azula is bending LIGHTNING. We have not heard of other lightningbenders until that point, and once the full show wraps up, there's only THREE (Azula, Ozai, Iroh). Out of those three? Only one is a fourteen-year-old girl. It's very easy to assume Azula's lightning is actually a skill she mastered unusually early in life, perhaps relatively recently, hence the practicing... but she's pulling it off. She's succeeding. She's doing something that genuinely catches a first-time viewer off-guard!

And Lo and Li's entire opinion of what she did is: "Almost perfect. One hair out of place."

This tells you the Fire Nation's idea of "imperfection" is... insane. Strict. Imposing. Unyielding. Unforgiving. Azula's reaction isn't to get angry at Lo and Li for saying what they did: it's to get angry at herself and try again.

But... that's not the only instance where we see Azula getting angry around Lo and Li.

The next few times Azula is around them, she doesn't seem to have much of an emotional reaction (one is when they tell her to find other allies, the other when they herald her as a great hero who returned home from Ba Sing Se). In the second of these scenes, Lo and Li are praising Azula as incredible, beautiful, all sorts of grand things...! And Azula smiles. She smiles at the crowd. She's not smiling at the old ladies who are praising her... she's mostly just happy to know her people are welcoming her as a hero indeed! Most the fandom would go "true! what an ungrateful bitch! She should've been happy that Lo and Li complimented her that way!!" Me? I wouldn't say that at all. Not just because I love Azula to pieces? But because the only information we have of Azula's dynamics with these two... doesn't seem compatible with the idea that what Lo and Li are saying here is for AZULA'S benefit.

Anyone who's had a hypocritical parent/caretaker/teacher must have endured awkward, horrible, unpleasant moments where this adult figure treats you like shit in private but in public holds you as this grand example, and a perfect child, and they never seem to stop saying they're soooo proud of you even though you NEVER felt that what they're saying is true. Maybe the first few times, you're naive enough to believe it. By the tenth time of incongruent messages? You start to realize they're talking you up as a way to make themselves look better. They're trying to show they're doing their job at raising you/training you, be it whatever it may. The praises are not FOR you... they're for a third person to hear and think "Oh, this adult's so cool, saying nice things about this kid they're responsible for! Nice!"

... You're starting to get the picture now, I'm sure.

Lo and Li reappear in the Beach. Azula is notably chill, enjoying the ride, talking casually with Ty Lee, telling Zuko to lighten up and to stop taking Ozai's choices personally, right? She seems... content. Relaxed.

Then, everything changed when Lo and Li attacked.

We don't even see why Azula is making this face at first. But she does it AT ONCE when their ship reaches the dock.

Who is there indeed...?

The stars of our post! :') if it isn't our elderly twin ladies... who brought Azula to a very disappoting beach house. And when Azula sees the house in question, she makes THIS face.

Judge however you may... even Ty Lee is weirded out by the beach house, going by that expression. Zuko and Mai aren't impressed either. But Azula? The look on her face isn't merely disappointment if you ask me... part of it looks a bit like embarrassment too? This isn't at all what she was expecting when she arrived (she has her old beach house for standards, which makes this extra underwhelming, I'm sure). She counts on Lo and Li to provide them with a place to stay, it goes implicit... and then this is what they do. It most likely isn't what she promised the other three in terms of where they'd stay, hence, I'd dare say there's a component of embarrassment here.

Shortly afterwards, we have our well known scene with Azula being utterly unconcerned with Lo and Li's apparent wisdom to the point of yawning over it. This, too, tells you she's just not interested in whatever those two have to say or bring to the table. Then, they show up again at mealtime and I think Azula just ignores them the whole scene.

After this? Lo and Li vanish until the finale. And what do they do in the finale? Why... it's the first time anyone expresses a verbal concern over Azula's wellbeing! Ah! A sign that Lo and Li have SOME affection for Azula! This time, you pesky Azula fans, you CAN'T twist this into a bad thing! For sure!

... Can't we, tho? :')

What IS Azula's reaction to: "We are concerned for your wellbeing"?

"My father asked you to come here and talk to me, didn't he‌? He thinks I can't handle the responsibility of being Fire Lord. But I will be the greatest leader in Fire Nation history."

And here, my friends, is when we have finally hit the jackpot.

Lo and Li could have been Azula's Irohs. She could've had TWO of him! Then you'd say: "hey! Ozai is such a dick he let Azula have two elderly wise ladies guiding her but only gave one old wise dude to Zuko! Rude!" and it would be further proof of Ozai's favoritism of Azula, right?

... But actually?

Lo and Li are no such thing. Lo and Li aren't moral compasses for Azula in the least. Lo and Li are not beacons of wisdom that genuinely help her sort her way through life. Worth noting: THEY COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN THAT WAY. They're not. They're not part of mysterious secret societies, they don't help Azula in any objective, significant, tangible way... there's very much nothing to say they EVER fulfilled the role Iroh did for Zuko. What role, then, were they fulfilling instead?

Why... I think we ought to listen to Azula, shouldn't we?

My take: Lo and Li are OZAI'S STAND-INS.

Someone's going to say "hey why would you assume that when Azula said this in the middle of a breakdown?? Surely she was just DELUSIONAL and PARANOID and ashdgkadhsgkjgh...!"

... Let me counter that one with a fun little analysis excercise:

WHY are Lo and Li Azula's firebending teachers and advisors?

The finale very directly tells us these two are not benders. We could've assumed they were! They're not: Azula's teachers are non-benders.

Has a single person out there ever asked themselves WHY this is the case?

How the hell is Azula, prodigy of the blue fire, epic lightning, cruel and powerful and precise and deadly bending... training under two elderly nonbenders?

Bringing this to a real-life example: do you remember what it was like when you were in P.E. classes and your teacher told you to spend 20 minutes jogging, and if you ever stopped you had to do 20 crunches and then get back to the jogging, and every time you stopped he'd tell you the same thing and you'd want that guy to vanish from the face of the planet? I don't know if that was only my experience, but I rather doubt it.

What did kids typically think/say when that happened?

"I wanna see that old fart doing the same shit he's making us do..."

It's a headcanon indeed to say that this is how Azula must have felt over Lo and Li, but it's VERY likely to be the case. But I'd dare say, in Azula's case, it's even worse because, to put it in another way? It's like taking programming lessons from someone who's never learned a programming language. They'll tell you you're getting things wrong without knowing how to help you get them right because they just DON'T KNOW what you're doing, and are outright INCAPABLE of what you're trying to achieve. They can't offer good guidance based on experience because they have ZERO experience on that subject! And yet they want PERFECTION from you! They expect it!

Lo and Li are these teachers for Azula. We only see them in one scene? And yet everything in the rest of the show suggests that they bring nothing important to the table for Azula, be it professionally, be it personally, be it emotionally... not in any aspect of life.

And this, if you ask me, is why the OG show barely ever brings them into scenes. Why the comics flat-out forgot they existed and even featured people like Sozin and Azulon in Azula's beach hallucinations but NOT the two ladies who looked after her and trained her. Why the live-action didn't even FEATURE them.

And us? The fandom? The fic writers?

I HAVE NO IDEA WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I READ A FIC THAT HAD LO AND LI INVOLVED IN IT.

I'm not even saying as main characters, I don't even know if that exists, frankly: I mean as minor, or background characters. I have NOT seen those two be used in basically ANY fics I've read. I've scarcely used them in mine! In fact, I PURPOSEFULLY got rid of them early on in Gladiator because I didn't want them to sabotage and get in the way of Azula's progress as a character and I believed they'd do exactly that. They were an obstacle rather than anything useful, so I did away with them and then realized they could still occasionally serve some purpose in certain situations: I even had Azula visit them once and they were actually helpful! Fancy that! But... that's it. That's as far as I could go with them. I can't do MORE with those two because they're not characters one particularly feels compelled to work with.

And from what I've seen? That's the case for everyone.

So, I ask again:

WHY ARE THEY THERE?

WHAT IS THEIR ROLE?

WHAT IS THE POINT OF AZULA HAVING NON-BENDING TEACHERS?

Let's go further and further into logical thinking here, shall we?

Azula is a child. Fourteen years of age at the time she's introduced in the OG show.

Azula has no power over many things around her, particularly, her upbringing. That's in the hands of the adults around her. Her mother, up until she vanished, had some hand in it, then, it all falls to Ozai.

Ozai has been Azula's sole parental figure since Ursa left.

Ozai is the one who would reasonably call the shots regarding Azula's education, as all parents are wont to do... ESPECIALLY when he's a king with absolute power over his children.

... so, Lo and Li? Ozai either gave them the position as Azula's teachers personally, or someone else (Ursa) did, and Ozai either didn't WANT to remove them from the role (cue "Ozai being sentimental over Ursa" theories), or Ozai didn't give a flying fuck about who was training his daughter (cue "Ozai is an abusive dick without a heart or a brain" theories).

Anyone, of course, would likely interject here to say surely Ozai ALSO trained Azula himself because that's what he'd do with his favorite kid, right? See. I don't even disagree with that notion.

BUT IT'S A HEADCANON.

We have zero evidence that Ozai trained her! None! I totally will write that into Azula's backstory in many of my stories, but there's NOTHING in canon to suggest this actually happened and that Ozai was genuinely, actively, frequently involved in her progress as a firebender. Assuming he HAD to be is, still, a headcanon. You can't say that with any more certainty than mine when I say I believe Azula loves spicy foods. Does it seem to be something that would fit with her character? I think so! But if eventually canon goes "AZULA CAN'T STAND SPICY FOODS LOL JOKE'S ON YOU!" I... can't even say a thing about it. People's food tastes aren't reflective of their personalities. They really could do whatever they want in that respect. And that's the case for ANYTHING that isn't part of the show's storytelling or the character backgrounds or any texts we consider canon!

POINT BEING: Ozai, regardless of what you want to headcanon, had Lo and Li as Azula's teachers. HIS FAVORITE CHILD... and her only official instructors are two non-benders. Yang added Kunyo as an old instructor of Azula's when she was young, sure! But Kunyo was sooooo qualified that baby Azula was already kicking his ass. So, for that matter? He doesn't really seem to have been a cornerstone of her firebending development and the only other known teachers for Azula are Lo and Li.

For the last time: Azula's teachers are NON-BENDERS. AS CHOSEN, SANCTIONED, APPROVED AND ACCEPTED BY OZAI.

And with those two remarking on absolutely STUPID stuff like "one hair out of place"? Azula still became the incredible firebender she was.

Cue, now, the irony where Zuko was stuck in the basics 3 years after setting out of the Fire Nation... WITH IROH ACTIVELY SERVING AS HIS MENTOR.

You're not gonna tell me that Lo and Li would EVER be better instructors than Iroh, or are you? Because that makes no sense. Full-stop. Iroh is supposed to be the most profound and complete firebender thorughout the show because he's spiritually enlightened even though I admit I think that's bullshit and he doesn't just teach Zuko how to set things on fire, he actually makes him learn theory and spirituality and his teachings are more profound than just "ONE HAIR OUT OF PLACE".

So.

Banished as he is, disgraced and seen as trash by Ozai, Zuko STILL has a better teacher than Azula does.

... Is this LOGICAL? Is this NORMAL? Does this make SENSE?

If you think Ozai's favoritism of Azula takes the shape of "I'll give you every little thing you ask for, sweetheart, I love you very much, here, have ten million doll houses so you can set them on fire, and all the ponies you ask for and on your next birthday I'll buy you a baby dragon and you'll get your own region of the Fire Nation to govern and a fancy title..."?

Then Lo and Li, unfortunately, are right here to be a HUGE contradiction with your interpretation of Ozai and Azula's relationship.

Azula should have THE BEST teachers. Azula does not. Azula doesn't even LIKE them. Azula is openly shown to dislike them! To be annoyed around them, ANGRY when they're teaching her, she feels they're here to keep tabs on her for her father! In a sense, they're Ozai's SPIES on her! :')

Hence? Ozai's favoritism of Azula MIGHT not be what everyone keeps pretending it is. Maybe Ozai didn't do everything to make Azula get things EASILY... and to be fair? That's not what Zuko said anyway. People interpreted it that way... but that's not REALLY what he says:

"Everything always came easy to her. She's a firebending prodigy, and everyone adores her. My father says she was born lucky. "

Every line in this statement is absolutely questionable and all of it sounds like buuuuullshit to me. This is ZUKO'S perspective. And sorry not sorry, but it's tell-don't-show. People swear by his opinion of Azula and pretend he's absolutely objective about it. He's not.

But "Everything always came easy to her," does not mean "EVERYTHING WAS ALWAYS HANDED OVER TO HER ON A SILVER PLATTER." And yet this is what the fandom has constantly interpreted it as.

Azula might just be a prodigy. Maybe she started out ten steps ahead of her brother: this does not mean she needs no guidance, no training, no help. She's seen training herself over perfectionism in her very second scene of Book 2. And the guidance she gets in order to achieve perfection is actually, objectively, stupid.

This is what Ozai chose for her. This is an OBSTACLE for her growth, just as much as Lo and Li were obstacles for me when I was starting with Gladiator! Azula doesn't have it EASY: she just works herself so damn hard that even shit that should HINDER her does NOT do that. And even when her brother objectively has spent THREE YEARS with an advantage in the shape of being trained by one of the VERY BEST firebenders out there? Azula is still beating Zuko at it. With two non-benders as her teachers.

Where am I going with all this?

To the fact that Lo and Li are overlooked in just about every instance of the fandom.

To the fact that nobody includes them, and their influence on Azula, in their analyses of who Azula is.

I've seen a shitstorm rising over the Netflix characterization of Azula: SHE'S TOO ANGRY, they say. Non-stop. She's sooooo hysterical, all the time! She's just pissed perpetually!

Well. I haven't finished the show yet. But the scenes I've seen Azula in so far? They don't fit the fandom's view of Azula because...

... they're not taking Lo and Li into account.

As usual.

:')

Azula's reactions around Lo and Li being frustration, anger, irritation EVEN in scenes like The Beach, where Azula was FINE until she sees them? That shit is storytelling that went over sooooooo many heads, EVEN MINE! When I saw people going on about how canon Azula is... not insecure? Not angry? Has no frustrations and was only ever smirking 24/7? I... didn't feel that was right. I knew it wasn't right. And when I thought about it hard enough? I realized that one reason why this interpretation of Azula is IMMEDIATELY dismissable is because of Lo and Li: those two constantly made Azula angry. Even if that wasn't their intent, it's nonetheless the effect they'd have on her. And Azula didn't like having them around. She CLEARLY didn't appreciate them the way Zuko does Iroh, for instance! And this could be taken as a flaw on Azula's part... if we EVER saw evidence that these two ladies actually love Azula as a grandchild, or so. If we had any evidence that they actually have cared for her in ways nobody else ever did. If maybe the ones Zuko talks about, upon saying "EVERYONE LOVES AZULA" were these two! And maybe he was jealous of them! Maybe he wanted two old ladies to watch his every move and tell him his every flaw!

... Clearly I'm joking about that last thing, but anyway...

There's nothing to tell us Lo and Li were anything but Ozai's assigned watchdogs to keep control and tabs over Azula. That Azula's immediate reaction upon hearing that someone cares about her is "Oh fuck off, my dad sent you here because he doesn't trust me!" is... telling. It's not just paranoia speaking, even if it sure can be read that way! It's actually Azula's perception of those two, which is 100% supported by what we saw of the twins throughout the show, WHENEVER we did see them: their roles in Azula's life are indeed to keep tabs on her, to keep her under control, to pressure her into perfection, AS OZAI'S AGENTS! Seen this way, it MAKES SENSE for Azula to disregard their concern and immediately assume it's FAKE. She isn't even shown to doubt it, never questions that MAYBE they did care about her! She assumes they don't...

... And considering that, as far as I know, the official concept is that they BOTH LEFT when Azula banished one of them only? That they didn't contest her command, staying to look after her even if she only wanted one? I mean, clearly Azula can't tell them apart, so they could've taken turns: one watches over Azula for 12 hours and the other for the next 12 hours, I don't goddamn know! But they didn't do that. They LEFT. And if they left? It means they don't care remotely as much as they say they do. Not to the point where they'd challenge Azula's orders and help her when they KNOW she's not okay.

And all of this further supports my point.

When we see Azula in the liveaction being angry, bitter, irritable at Ozai's choices?

I see a reflection of the same dynamics that the OG too subtly weaved into Azula's relationship with Lo and Li. I see Azula reacting against Ozai's control over her because she feels it's DISTRUST. She feels it means her father STILL needs to be convinced that she's competent, powerful, ready to do his bidding. It isn't a case where Azula's irritation comes from wanting to rebel against her father... it's Azula wanting her father to UNDERSTAND that she's 100% his supporter and will put everything on the line to serve him and the Fire Nation.

And it's very damn easy to read that exact same thing into Azula's dynamics with Lo and Li as it is to see it EXPLICITLY STATED in the liveaction.

My point?

What the liveaction did is not nearly as much of a distant characterization choice as people think it is.

Ozai is Azula's Achilles' Heel. Everything she became, everything she grew up to be, was for his sake. He molded her to become those things and simply didn't give a shit about raising a daughter, he treated her as a weapon, and absolutely pitted his children against each other, just as much as OTHER adults in their lives did. But the impact of Ozai on Azula in the OG is easy to ignore. Why? Because we SELDOM see them interacting. Because we don't get that side of Azula's character fully explored. Because they didn't want to explore Ozai's character either! They were as cheap as they could be with all these aspects and so, only the people who really got into analyzing things on a deeper level would be able to say, without a doubt, that Ozai abused Azula emotionally with all the expectations and demands he put on his own child. Through the golden child-scapegoat dynamic that people have been bringing up non-stop in the past years.

So, proving herself to her father is what Azula wants to do, more than anything. Proving worthy of his favor, of his approval, is the closest thing she can get to feeling loved. Which is depressing as fuck. Azula gets zero affection: it's not even conditional affection, there's NOTHING for her besides approving words if she gets anything right. And this show's work with Azula's character? It was meant to make these things less invisible to all the fans who like to pretend none of it exists. And yes, I've seen them, crawling all over Twitter shitting themselves in fits of rage because how dare that show pretend Azula EVER had a bad time in her perfect flawless life!!

Well, the irony is that the OG gives you a smidge of evidence -- and yet that's enough -- to show that Ozai was doing very similar things to Azula in ATLA, and her reactions to it?

Huh. No smirks for Lo and Li.

No smirks for the symbols of Ozai's control over her life.

It's almost like the confidence, the smirks, the apparent ease with which she handles everything? Is a front that crumbles easily whenever it concerns the ONE PERSON with power over her life.

I don't believe, worth noting, that Azula's power comes from rage. I've seen people say that in fandom in the past and I find it a completely absurd take when Iroh himself spells out that her bending is about control, about precision, and it's Azula's FURY that makes her a sloppy mess in the finale. It's even INTENTIONAL that when she shoots lightning a second time, in her second establishing scene, THAT SAME HAIR FALLS OUT OF PLACE. She's still angry. She didn't get it "right" this time either. She's imperfect and she's trying NOT to be, but she cannot succeed. And upon bending lightning with emotions (rage/frustration)? That hair falls YET AGAIN out of place. Proof that she's not going to achieve the perfection she's being FORCED (indeed, by her father and the people who are here to represent him, Lo and Li) to strive for.

The liveaction had Ozai pushing Azula for a perfection she couldn't attain either. She's perfectly content in her cruelty at Ozai's side, right until she hears the Avatar was found and that Zuko has a shot at taking away the privileges she's been basking in so far. That she WASN'T nervous about this in canon is pretty damn obvious: OZAI SENT HER TO HUNT ZUKO DOWN FOR BEING A FAILURE. We never saw her reaction to learning that the Avatar was out and about. We have noooo idea what was canonically going on with her back then. The first time we see her besides the flashback is Azula receiving a mission that tells her she's STILL #1 and Zuko is no threat to her because Ozai thinks he's a failure. Thus? She had nothing to fear. Here? Ozai is actively using Zuko as bait to pressure Azula further. And if you're so confident in Ozai's good parenting skills as to believe he somehow WOULDN'T do that? Sounds like you don't understand the very basic and simplistic Fire Lord Ozai from ATLA, and that's not something to be proud of. So probably stop screaming your bad takes at the top of your lungs, because being incapable of understanding Ozai in canon is not a badge of pride, just saying...

FINAL POINT...

This post is not written expressly in the defense of the liveaction and its characterization of Azula. To this point, what I've seen of it doesn't feel WRONG or OFF unless you're the kind of person who thinks Azula is only capable of smirking and if she stops doing that she stops existing or something. Only people who cannot understand the depth, nuance, subtleties in Azula's story would ever be claiming that Azula's relationship with Ozai COUDLN'T be like this, or that Azula couldn't possibly be frustrated with her father or his choices when it's soooo clear what Ozai is going for, and why it's working. But in order to read Azula as a character capable of this range of emotion, frustration and ambition, all at once? You have to be able to treat this character, be it in the liveaction or the OG show, as a human being.

And that's what most the people criticizing this specific change are determined not to do. It's what makes them uncomfy. It's what rustles their jimmies.

Yes. I'm saying it in this very demeaning way because I actually find it quite ridiculous to be this insecure over the portrayal of a fictional 14yo in two TV shows. Whether the liveaction sticks the landing or fails catastrophically, I do not know... but I do know that if it's forcing a bunch of people to rethink Azula's character, and making them panic at the idea that she could EVER have human emotions, even if they're AWFUL human emotions?

Then I'm afraid you're only convincing me that, as bad as that show could ever get? It's getting SOMETHING right. I do love to see misinterpretations of Azula getting slammed in the face by the reality that all those beliefs, headcanons and takes in bad faith are actively, categorically untrue: none of which makes Azula a fundamentally good person, worth noting! But it makes it very clear that reading her as a one-dimensional basic villain, which is what the anti-Azula-redemption crowd actively does, is literally only possible if you overlook, ignore and fail to understand her character and her complexities, be it in the liveaction or in the original show.

There. I said my piece.

Another post, regarding the rest of the liveaction, is bound to come later. I'd say stay tuned but it might take me a while to write it at all. So... wait around and maybe you'll see it someday!

[strunmah-mah]

Obscura is weirdly high stakes for a visual novel. Most vn's the end you get is an accumulation of the decision you make, Obscura? Make one wrong choice and you're DEAD.

Anyway, in unrelated news, I've somehow managed to get the bad end in 3 out of 4 of Obscura's routes. Whoops.

[bloodied-dagger]

it’s so funny to me with what’s happening in the music industry

like in one corner you have people like doechii and tyler who’re getting whimsical on the beat and doing silly shit and people love them for it

meanwhile you’d have people absolutely despising bands like AJR and Sleep Token

which, Sleep Token is one thing (metal elitists hating people doing different things) but the AJR hate is so funny to me

doechii: uses a high pitched voice in one of her songs and talks about her issues with upbeat music in the background general audiences: love it, song’s topping charts

AJR: uses a high pitched voice in some of their songs and talks about their issues with upbeat music in the background general audiences: this song is the worst. It’s single-handedly ruined music forever and ever. It killed my firstborn baby. Kill yourself

[cashmoneyyysstuff]

hey just a reminder that the words "please" and "thank you" exist !!

[todayisdeadinside]

you people need to stop hating on louis' outfits he looks amazing and like hes comfy as hell having a great time. i bet none of yall dress better than him.

[rebouks]

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hmmmmmmm where to even start, I love these past few scenes with the og Finch fam cos I think it does a really good job of encapsulating their family dynamics..

We already know that Oscar's pissed off with Noah for what he said but I don't think we can really blame him for thinking Oscar might just be like meh if something happened to Sid. It's no secret they don't have the best relationship-.. not to say they don't love each other cos they do, a LOT, but I think you can love and admire someone and still find it really hard to get along or be around them for too long.

I think what's REALLY interesting here though, is how Oscar's always felt second best to Noah (aka Golden Boy) but in reality, it's actually been Noah in the backseat all along.

I rewatched Breaking Bad recently and there's a scene where Jesse says something to his brother about him being the favourite cos he's well behaved and does well in school and wins trophies etc etc. but his brother's just like ?? are you kidding? you're all they talk about! It made me think about Oscar/Noah and how similar it is with them.

Almost since the moment he arrived, everything was always about Oscar. He's the one they worried and argued over, the one who took up more of their time and attention, the one who needed them the most, yet it still wasn't enough.

Sid's always been brash and a tough love type of person and in terms of the type of mother she was/is, probably not what Oscar needed. I don't think it's either of their faults, or that either particularly did anything wrong, it's just the way they are. Alton's always been inert too, which doesn't help. He's rubbish in an emergency, never makes any decisions until it's too late, never steps in when he should-.. and on the rare occasion he does, he'll probably go about it in the wrong way. Noah's the placatory one on the side-lines, trying to pick everything up once it's fallen apart; except he's clumsy with it and he's not very good at reading the room or putting himself in other people's shoes so his "help" often feels insincere and judgemental and that doesn't help either.

Sure, Noah's closer to his parents and spends WAY more time with them, he's barely ever fallen out with them and he's never felt neglected by them/resented Oscar or anything but I still think he's undeniably aware that he's not the favourite Oscar claims he is. He was just easy in comparison. I think Oscar's somewhat aware of it though, he briefly mentions it in this scene, saying; "They didn’t prefer you. You just weren’t a little cunt like me." Although.. he kinda overlooks this fact most of the time, probably because of his bitterness toward feeling like a misfit in his own family and general penchant for ruminating on the past.

Sid/Alton were just never equipped to deal with a kid like Oscar. He needed patience, empathy, trust and guidance but he didn't get any of that-.. like they gave up on him before he even knew what that meant. As guilty as it makes him feel, he'd be relieved if Sidney wasn't around cos he'd have no one to prove anything to anymore-.. like how Wyatt felt free when his father died!! A strong comparison maybe but the same undercurrent of never feeling worthy is there, y'know? Even if the relationship is much, much different.

It's a shame really, but no matter how much Oscar grows as a person, his family still kinda see him the same way that they used to; the unstable and impulsive one. It's like they're blind to all the nuances of his personality and sometimes I just wanna shake em like ahhhhhsdkjskdjk.. Oscar could do 9 good things and 1 bad and you can guaranteeee they'd focus on the bad :/ (side note: this is probably the main reason Robin is sorta like eh toward them all as well - more so than the other kiddos - cos he can sense all this and it pisses him off almost as much as it does me fkjfjk)

I don't know, this family is SO interesting to me.. like I don't think any of them are wrong for how they are or how they act with one another but they're so inherently mismatched that they just don't work. They've never been much of a functional family unit if you include Oscar, however cute they can be sometimes, and they probably never will be. That's just the way it is...

[daisymaycries]

What is the secret spice of Shakespeare tragedies that adds the super special element of face-palm? 🤦‍♀️ The characters' total inability to communicate productively. Other notable examples of this trope are The Tower of Babel, The Kneecapping Incident of 1927™️, and the entirety of the 1998 Pixar movie "A Bug's Life."

[chotachica]

If you like dazai from bsd you like gojo from jjk and if you like gojo from jjk you like vash from trigun, its literally stated by god

[scarapanna]

put the jam on this food give him food with jam in side of it. make sure to hide the jam part so where pv eat it he gets a mouth full of it

I like to think sm pranks are really hard to fine so when he pranked anyone the prank will work even before he turns evil. and it's the best way to trauma someone and I think sm has done it before to someone.

something like that V like this type for food he would uses.

He doesn't seem too keen on getting any more food you guys/silly

[1doesnotsimplyhavejust1fandam]

Imagine being such close besties with someone that your entire world knows about it. Just. Sirius Black and James Potter being so close that literally nobody questions that Sirius was the Potters’ Secret Keeper, even when he immediately went after Peter in a very public way, instead of laying low like any sane person would do after they were just revealed a traitor and their precious Lord died (although, they did think Sirius went mad, so it makes sense in a way). But of everyone in the Order, no one once questioned the Potters making Sirius their Secret Keeper, despite his prejudiced family, despite the Prank, despite any number of ways in which Sirius wasn’t perfect. Everyone in the Wizarding World still saw Sirius and James, and thought, “yeah, there’s no way it was anyone else, even if the betrayal makes their friendship seem so much less deep”. There was no reason for Remus to question it because he watched James and Sirius be the best of friends for a decade, he knew Sirius was Harry’s godfather, he knew James would have trusted no one more, that Lily loved Sirius and thought the world of him. There really was no other choice for the Potters, to anyone.

Which makes Peter being Secret Keeper that much more awful because it was such a genius move! Sirius was actually so smart to try this twist, to suggest making Peter the Secret Keeper. He knew everyone knew how close him and James were, how close he’d always been to the Potter family, he knew they’d come after him and Sirius would’ve DIED rather than betray his friends, his godson. He would’ve died to protect Peter too, so that nobody would know who the Secret Keeper really was. There was no reason to suspect Peter when there was Sirius Black, known Death Eater hater and unendingly loyal to his friends, RIGHT THERE. If Sirius really HAD died, he would’ve gone out thinking his friends would still be safe bc once Voldemort discovered he wasn’t the Secret Keeper, it would’ve jumped to Remus or even an older Light member like Moody or Dumbledore. Sirius damned himself knowingly, before ever finding out that Peter had gotten the Potters killed.

Sometimes I think about how Sirius managed to convince James and Lily to use Peter instead of him. They both must’ve known that Sirius would be killed immediately once it was determined that he didn’t know the Secret, so Sirius must have used Harry against them, said that they needed to do ANYTHING to keep their little boy safe, even if it meant Sirius offering himself up as a target, a sacrifice for their safety. Sirius must have thought he was so smart, because he found a way to keep his friends and godson safe, even though he wasn’t the Secret Keeper, and he didn’t put them at risk by trusting “potential spy: Remus Lupin”. He must have argued with James and Lily for ages about it, convincing them that it was the right decision, some misdirection to keep them safer for longer, another line of defense between their little Harry and the monster who wanted to destroy him.

It’s already wild to me that Sirius even held enough power/voice in this discussion to even suggest Peter as Secret Keeper. Like, the level of trust James and Lily must’ve had in him, to entrust their lives AND their son’s in Sirius’ plan? Nobody can ever say that Sirius wasn’t loved and trusted to the ends of the earth by James and Lily. They wanted HIM because there was nobody they trusted more, even with how reckless Sirius is shown to be, even years later. Trying to imagine Sirius in Azkaban all those years, knowing he basically handed his best friends over to Voldemort with that plan? Hell on earth, literally. He speaks on it maybe once to Harry in the entirety of the series, and it’s so clear that he is completely derisive about the plan. He despises the fact that it was his plan that got his best friends killed, that caused Harry to lose his parents. He blames himself (and Peter), but he had over a decade to sit in prison and think about the what ifs of that plan, to remember that it was his idea that killed James and Lily.